


down on its knees true love did fall

by nosecoffee



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell, Hellenistic Religion & Lore
Genre: Angst, Bad Decisions, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Orpheus is Immortal AU, Post canon, Support Systems, Survivors Guilt, does it count as survivors guilt if he accidentally left her in the underworld, i guess?, supportive friendships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-26 04:26:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17738984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: (it was a broken dream right from the start, bless their tortured tangled hearts)*"Oh, Orpheus.” Persephone breathes, seating herself beside him. There's real sorrow in her voice this time. He forgets that sometimes she does care. “It's worse this year, is it?""It's been nearly a hundred years since it happened.” He tells her. He's sure she’ll get it. “I'm more than double the age I was when it happened, and I'm still alive. I can't make sense of anything."





	down on its knees true love did fall

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Tortured Tangled Hearts" by the Dixie Chicks
> 
> This is something I've been thinking about for a while, hope you like it.

Orpheus learns, later on, that it started as a game, for her. One she'd played a lot. They were both young, but by the time she was forced to play it, she was old enough to know what constituted asking to borrow someone's bed.

The thing is that when he brought her home with him, there was none of that. They didn't make love to each other until Persephone's return to the Aboveworld, elated and drunk. She had told him when they met that she'd knew too many men like him, and she assumed he saw her as a potential fuck. Someone willing to give themselves over for the night in exchange for food and a bed to sleep in.

They both knew he wasn't that person. He had a great love of his life and what he needed was a muse. She saw what he could do, what his father had gifted him with, and she saw greatness in him. Orpheus knows she didn't mean to fall in love with him.

That's okay. He's never had a problem that Eurydice was reluctant to give herself over so completely in that way - as a poet, a person whose career was in matters of the heart - he never had a problem that Eurydice tried not to fall in love with him. It just meant all the more when she did, anyway, when her control failed and she decided loving him wasn't the worst thing in the world.

The summer was good to them. In the spring, everyone loved to hear Orpheus' unfinished song of hope, powers from his parents to coax flowers from the ground and Ice from the surface of the river and snow from rooftops. The seasons warmed, Eurydice loved him, and Orpheus sung.

In the summer, they were rich as kings. In the summer everyone was carefree and drunk, willing to give the penny to their name to hear what Orpheus had to say. When everything is looking up, everyone loves a poet, and everyone loves his wife.

Who couldn't? Eurydice was beautiful and brilliant and had a sharp tongue when she needed it. She too had a way with words, but unlike him she used them for violence, used them to hurt. She could coil them likes snakes around your ankles, like hands around your throat, and make you feel like you were choking, unable to move, unable to breathe.

Orpheus would know. He'd participated in a number of fights, half-hearted on his end.

Eventually he stopped participating, as the seasons changed, once more, and Persephone went away. Eventually he stopped listening.

Orpheus knows now that at first, she was playing a game. He knows now that the moment he stopped listening was his undoing, that in turning away and thinking of soft green grass and summer winds he was signing her death warrant.

~

He already knows who it is when he hears the knock. These days, he's only visited by Gods and people who's commissions he's prepared. But he knows when she arrives, because the air warms and freshens, smells of the dewy grass he once knew.

Orpheus knows Persephone well, now, and spring always comes on time these days.

"Orpheus! Open up!" More knocking. Orpheus opens the door for her and she enters in a whirl of huge skirts and suitcases. And a coffee cup in his hand, just the way he likes it. "Don't keep a Goddess waiting, hasn't anyone ever told you that?"

Persephone kisses his cheek and then drinks deeply from her own coffee cup, setting her suitcases down by one of his many indented windows. "Sorry, you know what I'm like in the morning." He knows it's not an excuse, but he says it anyway, and she takes it as one.

"Can you not be the most pitiful person I've ever met for the entirety of my stay?” Persephone asks him, as he seats himself on his bed, falling into a habitual slump. “Please? It's as depressing as Hadestown, here."

"I'm sorry." Orpheus responds, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, her gifted coffee set down on his bedside table.

"No, don't be sorry,” she sighs, “I'm just..."

She trails off. He doesn't bother trying to set her back on track. If he's honest, he prefers the silence, now. If it's too loud he gets jittery. He could use some fucking downers, if he's truly honest. "If it's depressing why do you come visit at all?" Orpheus asks Persephone, looking up from his cracked fingernails.

"Because I feel sorry for you." Persephone says to Orpheus, bluntly. She's never been anything but blunt with him, never put anything into flowery language, no matter how much he'd like her to. Then again, it's always been him with the flowery language, hasn't it.

He frowns at her, "Has anyone ever told you you're not very nice?"

"No one’s ever dared,” she replies with a grin that's all bared teeth. “Don't you know Persephone means _the destroyer_?"

"So destroy me.” Orpheus laughs, opening his arms wide. He probably looks a mess to her. He doesn't care. “I'd welcome it."

"Oh, Orpheus.” Persephone breathes, seating herself beside him. There's real sorrow in her voice this time. He forgets that sometimes she does care. “It's worse this year, is it?"

"It's been nearly a hundred years since it happened.” He tells her. He's sure she’ll get it. “I'm more than double the age I was when it happened, and I'm still alive. I can't make sense of anything."

"You know you're alive because of your parentage, right? Your father a god and your mother a muse.” Persephone must know them, then, or must have, before Hades. He's never spoken to his parents, brought up by the good in the world, taught to be optimistic by his good luck. If he could speak to them now he doesn't know what he'd ask. Maybe he'd ask why they let him fail. Maybe it had nothing to do with them. “They won't let you die because of their _blood_."

"I don't _want_ to be alive, though. I didn't then, and I don't now.” Those words have become more and more attractive as time goes on. Orpheus hadn't realised how romanticised the idea of immortality had been until he was experiencing it. Time was moving, the world was moving, but he wasn't. Spring came and went, replaced by dreary fall, and he remained the same and still. The years pass, and all Orpheus wants is to be under the ground again, and he wants to stay, this time. “It's a very simple request, death."

"You're always so dreary to be around." She complains, getting to her feet and crossing the room.

"And yet you still return." He laughs, as Persephone, goddess of springtime, rummages through her purse and pulls out a compact mirror. She pretends she's all prim and proper, but three or so drinks in and all pretence falls away.

"Because you're pitiful,” she tells him, fixing her lipstick, “and I feel partially at fault."

Orpheus closes his eyes and counts to ten before changing the subject completely by asking, "How's your marriage, Persephone?" It's kind of a double edged sword, at this point. Not a question he really should ask, she would probably have every reason to strike him down for asking it, but they’ve known each other so long now, she know she doesn't mean it, really.

"Mine? Oh, it's flourishing.” She waves a dismissive hand. “Nothing quite like a decade or so of fighting to enhance a relationship."

"My congratulations." Orpheus deadpan before face planting into his pillow.

"Do you plan to mope for my whole stay, Orpheus?" Persephone inquires, suddenly all pleasant society lady.

"I always do.” He mumbles into his pillow. He hears her sigh, loudly, and mentally rolls his eyes. “Why break tradition?"

~

A little known fact is that Hades is _not_ the villain of this story. Nor is Orpheus. The villain is doubt. Doubt in yourself, doubt in the ones you love, doubt in something sure, and doubt in something uncertain.

Orpheus doubted himself in a moment of true weakness, just as Hades meant for him to, and Eurydice doubted him when he was too far down the rabbit hole of his own cleverness, doubting his initiative to provide for them both.

The villain is not a man, the villain, the flaw, the problem is so inherently human.

Orpheus likes to think that he couldn't possible be the villain of the story. He remembers so clearly returning to their house To find the bed empty, the fireplace cold. He remembers running through the woods, calling her name, hoping to god to find her alive and not frostbitten under some tree, firewood still curled in her arms.

The flowers - the ones he'd played from the ground despite the chill - drooped in his hands. And when he'd found her body, being picked at by vultures, snake bites at her ankles, he'd dropped them, bending over her body, cradling it in his arms, crying harder than he knew he could.

He had cursed his existence in that moment, he had cursed every argument he let play out, every kiss he'd passed on for a chance at the right lyrics springing to mind. Orpheus died for her in that moment. And then he'd died again when he was returned to the surface without her.

Because he doubted himself.

Maybe he is the villain. Maybe in her eyes he is. In his eyes there are aspects that he finds villainous, but truly, in his heart, he loved her. Being alone is torture, especially when he is forced to continue to exist, for all eternity.

~

Persephone bums a smoke off of him, standing outside his apartment building, under the jut of the eaves, watching the rain pour down around them. "Do you hope you'll get cancer and die through these?" She asks him, waving the cigarette at him, writing a perplexingly fleeting smoke confession that she doesn't know what she's doing here.

She supposes he doesn't, either.

"Oh, perhaps," he says, between drags. "I just get a good one, once in a while. I chain smoke a pack, waiting for the right hit of nicotine, waiting for that one cigarette that makes the habit worth it."

"And how often do you get one?" Persephone questions, taking a long drag of her cigarette. The air is wet around them, making her skin cold, making his hair curl. The only lights around them are the neon sign for the club across the street and the glowing ends of their cigarettes when they take a drag.

"Once every three packs, maybe?" Orpheus replies, breathing out smoke. It's mixed with the condensation of his breath. She shivers.

"I don't think that's worth it." She tells him.

"That's _your_ opinion.” He says. “ _You're_ not addicted to nicotine."

She shivers again. Orpheus shrugs off his jacket, cigarette between his pursed lips, and drapes it over her shoulders. She feels, for a minute, like a teen, falling in love for the first time. But she is Millenia old, with a husband waiting for her return, and Orpheus is a poor boy with no hope. She is no hopeless romantic. "It's turning colder.” She murmurs, tapping the back of her cigarette to get rid of the ash. “I'll be going back soon."

"Changed your mind about taking me home in your suitcase?" He jokes, watching her burrow into his warm jacket.

Persephone sighs, casting a side-eye at him, "You know I can't do that, Orpheus."

"Sure you can.” Orpheus says, cheerily. “You're a goddess, you're the queen of the underworld. You are the wife of Hades."

"You say that as if it will mean anything to him if he catches us." She tells him, her cigarette finally turning to ash. She exhales the last of the smoke and breathes clear for the first time in ten minutes. She doesn't need to breathe, and doesn't when she sees fit, but there's something awfully humbling, breathing while she's in the Aboveworld. It makes her feel human, where she could not be further away.

"Can I at least give you something to give her?" And now his voice is the smallest it's been her entire visit.

"What is it?" Persephone asks him, willing to bend the rules for this man who should have moved on after his failure, and still wallows in the wrong he has done his wife.

He grasps Persephone’s hand, and pulls her to his chest, a bold thing for him to do to a goddess, and then does something bolder, pressing his lips to hers, pouring every emotion into the kiss that she thinks he must have had since he was returned to the Aboveworld, alone. She imagines this is how he would have kissed Eurydice goodbye, if he'd had the chance.

Persephone pushes him away, gently, after a moment. She hasn't been kissed by anyone but Hades since her creation. To taste another's lips, to have them taste of smoke and old beer, to be caught up in a kiss of another after so many years - "You shouldn't have done that." She tells him, wearily.

"Maybe." Orpheus replies, retrieving a new cigarette, and lighting it between clenched teeth.

"No, not maybe.” She says, tone harder than before. She feels like a mother, reprimanding her child. She has never been a mother, and he is not a child. “You're a bad person."

"So are you." He chuckles back, and she fights to not feel offended. He has every reason to think so.

"Maybe." Persephone agrees.

"Not maybe.” Orpheus snorts. And then he turns, sad eyes turned earnest. “Do you want me to wait for the train with you?"

She does. Waiting for the train, alone, would probably break her. No one bids summer goodbye anymore, except Orpheus. "If you have the time." Persephone murmurs.

"I have nothing but time.” He says to her, turning to look at the neon sign through the rain. “Didn't you hear? I can't die."

~

He waits with her for the train.

They sit side by side on the only bench at the station, her suitcase to her left, him to her right. They're both wearing sunglasses, because they drank the night away, until four in the morning, and two Advil can't chase away the hangover.

Orpheus is playing some strategy game on his phone and Persephone is leaning over his shoulder to watch. Her breath comes out in bursts of condensation. He'd offer her a cigarette if he had any to offer, he sees her leg bouncing with nerves.

They hear the train whistle blow two minutes before the train pulls up, but Persephone’s shoulders don't lose their tension in all that time. Orpheus wants to joke about her flourishing marriage, but he knows she'll take it badly. Instead, he hands her a stick of gum, picks up her suitcase for her, and helps her to her feet.

They don't speak. Hermes doesn't come to say goodbye anymore, and they both feel his absence. It's nice to know the old man found something better to do, though. Maybe Orpheus should find something better to do.

Hermes drops in a bit during the winter. Orpheus will wake up in the morning and the apartment will be warm, smelling of coffee and fried eggs. And Hermes will be watching something on Orpheus’ Netflix. But he only does that a few times, every winter. He knows how Orpheus needs it on the anniversary of his return to earth, when Persephone is still under the ground and he's the only one who knows how to comfort Orpheus.

He's around a lot more during spring and summer. He likes to be around Orpheus when the sun is bright and spring, in all her glory, can be with them.

Orpheus hugs Persephone tight, when the train finally stops, and then he hands her her suitcase. He doesn't look. But he knows Hades is watching. Orpheus tips his sunglasses down and nods to her. “See you next spring,” he says, in farewell.

She tips her own sunglasses down, and jerks her chin at him. “See you next spring.” She echoes back to him.

Then she hops on the train, and is gone. The air around him already feels colder.

Orpheus pulls his jacket tighter around himself and begins to walk home. Only six more months until she comes back. He's already lived a hundred and something years. He can live another six months.

 

  
**fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please leave a kudos and drop a comment about why you liked for me to read later. Hmu on Tumblr @nose-coffee for notifications for when I post fic. Once again, thanks for reading.


End file.
